The Tire Swing
by LadySkarlettofSkaro
Summary: At times, during one's life, there is a moment where friendships will begin, fights will occur, hurt will form, comfort will commence, love will blossom. But throughout all of the aforementioned, it is the heart of the people that truly matters, and the truth that is to be uncovered inside. USUK Rated M for language


**I don't own anything but the plot, Elizabeth and James Kirkland, and Emily and Joseph Williams. Any and all familiar characters go to Hidekaz Himaruya.**

**And just for the record, I still do not know what was happening when...this happened X'D Just:**

**Enjoy~!**

* * *

A Toy Is Built For the Lonely

Arthur Kirkland was a bit nervous to be moving to the new land of America. It was a scary new place that he didn't know much about already, and he was frightened about what the other kids would think about him. He had never been good at making friends. In fact, he would admit to being more than a bit socially-awkward. He could come up with a polite, nice conversation when it was necessary, but otherwise anything else was off-limits for his mind to process. He would approach them and apply what he knew, and beyond that, he would become shy and nervous and not know what to do. It was terrifying to think about how much he would not be wanted by his classmates, especially when he was so smart and clever and alien to them.

So, he asked his parents to take an old tire they had found and some rope and set up a tire swing in the front yard. He had seen their new neighbors with one, and it intrigued him. The nine-year-old Brit just wanted to try it out, give it a spin, etc. He figured that it would do some good for him, give him entertainment, whilst at the same time giving him time to think or draw or read or, even the simplest, swinging. It made him feel safe and secure when he was alone.

In a few days, after the Kirkland's were settled, the father of the house set up a tire swing for his son. Arthur practically jumped for joy, but held it back, opting instead for just watching his dream toy come together flawlessly. As soon as it was ready and well-tested, the young boy nearly broke a limb jumping on top of it belly-first and swinging with quiet laughs every now and then.

He did this every day, between each meal, doing nothing but reading or writing or thinking or swinging with his stuffed bunny- or even carefully holding his real one. But one day, a quite unusual event happened to him, something he would have never dreamed happening.

The very American boy of the Jones family, whom the Kirkland's had met as soon as they had moved into their new house, had decided to pay young Arthur a visit. Arthur was holding his black-furred pet, Ebony, while quietly reading and swaying every now and then, just to make sure he could touch the ground. However, the book fell from his hands and the rabbit jumped and nearly leaped away from him when a loud "Hiya!" startled him and made him slip into the open hole in the tire.

"H-hello," he stuttered out quietly, trying to reorganize himself on his seat. "I apologize if I startled you. I didn't see you there...w-well, here, really, but I don't think it matters..."

"I like your accent!" The boy leaned forward, grabbing the rope and grinning with a bright rise of his lips. "Where are you from?"

Arthur was reluctant to answer, but quietly replied despite his fear of giving away too much of his identity. "Just outside of London, England."

"Whoooooa!" His neighbor looked amazed. "That's crazy! I've never met a Brit before."

"W-well, now you have." Arthur scolded himself internally for sounding like such a wimpy baby. "My name's Arthur." He held out his hand. "I met your mum and dad when we first moved, but you weren't there."

"I'm Alfred! Nice ta meet ya!" He took the hand as soon as it was offered, as if he had been waiting for him to extend a hand for him to shake. "Do you like football, Arthur? I need someone to play with, and my lame-o brother Mattie is sick."

"Did you ask your parents if you could? I don't want you to get in trouble for something ridiculous as playing without permission."

"I'll be fine! I said I was going to hang out with the new kid! Hold on, I'll go get my ball!"

Arthur started to stop his new friend, but Alfred was gone before he could. He had always liked football, but he didn't want to play it right at that moment. But perhaps this would give him a chance to have a new friend. The Brit returned Ebony to her cage, and then dashed down the stairs to greet Alfred, who had come back with a different ball than Arthur had thought he was getting.

"This is my ball! I really wanna play football when I get to high school. Mom says I can, if I want to. She said I can do anything I put my mind to as long as I keep myself dedicated to it and stick to it and promise her that I won't abandon it like I always do, but I don't always do that!"

Arthur eyed the ball in uncertainty. Footballs were not shaped like that at all; they were round, not misshapen ovals. Was this what Dad called the American football? "I-I don't know how to play your football..." He quietly admits, looking away from his new friend.

"That's alright! I know you guys don't have football like we do, but you guys have rugby, right? And that's a really fun game! I played it once when we had our family reunion. It was so cool!"

Arthur gave a small smile, and listened carefully to the instructions, learning how to throw a ball properly and how to catch without hurting himself and even how to jump and catch it. Alfred certainly knew what he was doing, and the two played until Arthur's mother called in her son for supper. The two bid their farewells, the American promising to see him tomorrow, and that he'd bring another game for them to bring. The Brit smiled gently and small, which must have been the first genuine sight of one since they had moved to the state of Virginia, and it startled the Kirkland household.

"It looks like Arthur's found himself a friend," Elizabeth Kirkland whispered to her husband as their currently youngest son cleaned up for dinner.

James only smiled with a shake of his head and a chuckle, the way he always did when he was keeping a secret. Elizabeth looked at him curiosity, but didn't comment.

* * *

The Toy Is a Seat for Three: American, British, Homework

Three years later finds Alfred and Arthur, best friends, both twelve by now in the second semester of sixth grade, at the same tire swing under the same tree, homework in their lap as they both look at what they had received. Their finals were arriving quickly, and the two had studied everywhere. From the supermarket with Emily Jones to Alfred's baseball games, they managed to study wherever they went, so much that they had built tests from each subject to assist the other in learning what they needed.

"What's the answer for number twenty-six?" Alfred quietly asked as he marked off an answer for another problem. He had become a well-respected jock for their middle school, or secondary school as the Briton called it, and had outstanding grades in science and math, even though everything was else was a bit more difficult for him to understand. Arthur, nonetheless, was outstanding in all subjects so he made the lessons a bit more bearable and easier for his friend to understand.

"I can't give you all of the answers," the Englishman grumbled, too delved into concentration to talk very loud. Thanks to Alfred, he had managed to reshape his social skills and was much more friendlier than before when he had first arrived in America. He still had difficulty talking to people, but this time because he was now stubborn and a bit irked by anything and everything. He was nice once one got to know him, but he was usually rude and cynical to several people, even his best friend, the same American who was now throwing the test to the ground in annoyance. "Arthur, it's too hard, I can't remember what it means!"

The Brit groaned and took his paper in his hands in annoyance, mumbling about the things he does "for inconsiderate bleeding wankers". Alfred ignored the comment; it was just Artie being Artie: British, rude, and so adorably and irresistibly cute. "It's asking you to define the word using context clues to see what the word means."

"Yeah, and I don't get it!"

Arthur rolled his eyes; all he needed to do was try and figure out what the word meant by looking at its surrounding words. The word wasn't even a real one; he had made it up off of the top of his head. "The answer is A, Alfred. It's not even a real word. I made it up."

Alfred looked shocked, his jaw hanging low. "Are you serious?! I looked for five hours for ten words to find the perfect ones for your English section, and you just /made them up/?!"

"Not all of them, but most of them." Arthur shrugged; it wasn't a big deal.

The American, however, looked enraged. "I can't believe you! That's not in the rules!"

"There weren't any rules!" The Brit shot back. "We never said we couldn't do that!"

"Well now we can't, so you're wrong!"

"I'm wrong?!"

"Yeah, you!" Alfred climbed out of the swing, falling to his knees with an "oof". "With your stupid eyebrows and your stinky tea clothes and your ugly eyes and your…British Britishness!"

"Britishness isn't a word!"

"I don't care! I had to waste my time in baseball to study and look up five words and look up the rest of them, and now I can't play the next game!"

"Too bad, you should be studying either way!"

"Then I'll go study by myself!"

"FINE!"

"FINE!"

Alfred stomped off in anger, going off to sit where their yards met, grumbling to himself about stupid British people while Arthur pouted sternly in the tire swing.

However, the two were silent and stared at their paper and made no move to add in an answer or to do anything with it. They looked behind his shoulder to see what the other was doing, and cringed upon catching the other's line of sight. Why couldn't he just look away?

After a while, however, Arthur looked behind him to see Alfred wasn't where he had last been. Had he gone back home? The Brit was about to go searching when he was stopped by two hands on either side of his head, gripping the rope tautly. He jumped and would have yelped in shock if he hadn't recognized whose hands they were.

"Why are the nutrient cycles of phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, and water so important?" Alfred whispered, neither too sad nor too happy.

Arthur was quiet, in mild bewilderment, before he gave a small smile. "They are what help keep life going by the process of recycling to help them back into the ground." The baseball player climbed in across from the Brit with a grin and laugh as they started to gently swing and gain height. "What are the linking verbs?"

"Is, am, be, are, was, were, being, been, remain, appear, become, feel, smell...uh...smell, sound, taste!"

The two went on back and forth for hours, up until dark arrived and they were exhausted. Arthur had already opted for resting against Alfred, and the former eventually fell asleep in his embrace, nowhere near becoming alone.

* * *

The Toy Is a Battlefield

"You have a visitor."

Arthur took off his headphones to look at his father. "Hm?"

James gestured to the front of the house. "Him. He's On the swing."

"Tell him I'm busy." The Brit started to delve himself back into music.

"He knows you're lying to him. Go see him, Arthur."

With an exasperated sound, he threw his musical device to the bed and calmly walked to the front yard.

For reasons unknown, in Arthur's junior year, he decided to change his entire look. All of his sweater vests and button-down shirts and trousers and loafers were stored somewhere else, and replaced with band shirts and ripped jeans and decomposing sneakers. His blond hair changed colors every month, from green to blue to brown to orange to silver. As of right now, his hair was a tomato red. He smoked a cigarette a day during the lunch break, and drank a bottle of rum every other Saturday. His parents stopped him at first, and although they had never caught him, that didn't mean they suspected him. The only thing he had kept were his love for books and art, his eye color, and the atrocious eyebrows on his forehead. He had pierced his ear, but Elizabeth had threatened him to remove it or else suffer. There were no other words to be said.

Arthur wasn't surprised to see Alfred sitting on the eight-year-old tire swing. Once upon a time, they had spent long days together on this, talking and studying and having fun with each other. But last year, a rumor had gone around that Arthur was gay, and he had been so angry with everyone at school, especially Alfred since he felt he hadn't stuck up for him. The Brit had said what he needed to say and had said good-bye to their friendship. He still talked to the Jones parents, Emily and Joseph, and he was good friends with Matthew, Alfred's half-brother, but he always excused himself whenever he saw the jock. However, as of right now, he couldn't run away. He had to face the fear and obstacle that he had been denying for a year.

"Why are you here?" He asked. Alfred, dressed in his letterman jacket, turned to look at the punk.

"Where have you been?" He asked in a mixture of shock and anger. "You haven't been in school all week and Peter says you're not yet your music's in the background, and sometimes I hear you talking. What's going on?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I'm your friend."

"We are not friends."

"Arthur, come on, when we were ten, we ate dirt and tree bark together because we wanted to make brownies on our own."

"A simple children's game."

"Well in eighth grade, we went skinny-dipping because we thought we were freshmen and cool and leeches almost ate our dicks."

"We were high."

"From what?!"

"Sugar."

"When we were going into seventh grade, we climbed a tree and fell and broke the same arm."

"An idiot's mistake."

"Arthur, stop denying our friendship and acting like it was nothing. It happened and that's what matters."

"It was never real in the first place."

"Never real?!" Alfred stood from the swing that was far too big for his five-foot-ten body. "That happened, Arthur, I know it did! I lived it and I remember it every single fucking day!"

"Well then what a shitty childhood you had, considering the fact that you don't want anything to do with me!"

" I care about you so much, Arthur! Why would you even think that?!"

"Because when the whole fucking school spread a rumor that I was gay, you did nothing to stop it!"

"Why do you care what the whole school thinks?!"

"It's a lie, Alfred, I'm nowhere /near/ gay! I don't want the entire student body thinking poorly of me!"

"Well who cares if it's a lie, Arthur, no one will think any different of you if it's not true!"

"You don't know that!"

"I do!"

"You're a fucking traitor, you don't understand my situation. Do you know how many times I've had your jock friends push me into the toilet and do a...swirly as they flush it and shove me into the shite-smelling shit?!" Alfred opened his mouth to speak, but Arthur cut him off. "You know, it's ironic, Mr. Wide Receiver, that you live in your own fucking world of popularity and cheerleaders and girls practically hanging off of you, but as soon as something bad is said about me, you wait an entire fucking year and a half to resolve it."

"Well if you were at school, you'd know that I'm not considered popular as of right now."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that I'm tired of this fame crap and people knowing me for my sports and shit that I've decided to come out of the fucking closet and admit to the whole school that the best Wide Receiver they had seen in years is actually a fucking gay-as-hell faggot that dreams of dicks and dildos up his ass. I gave up everything but my grades because I was so upset with what happened with you, and people were still fucking talking about it. I punched some freshmeat for talking about it and I vandalized the boys and girls bathrooms with the rumor after practice. Everyone's saying that I came out of the bathroom stall and they don't know that I started it."

Arthur was silent. Out of all that he and Alfred had shared, he would have never thought that he would prefer men. It almost seemed unreal to him; Alfred was the faster receiver for the football team and a quick-footed shortstop for the baseball team. He was honored and adored and worshiped by so many, and he gave it all up for him, for Arthur, who had hated him for year and a half. "Why did you do this?" He whispered in mild shock. "You had so much fame and honor and glory...and you came out of the closet for someone who has held a grudge against your sorry ass for a year. Why?"

Alfred looked like several things: lost, frazzled, anger, saddened. "You didn't ever think I was?"

The Brit shook his head. "No, of course not. I never...I thought you were straight."

This seemed to only increase his depression. "Arthur, I..." Alfred swallowed. "I've loved you for years."

Arthur was extremely quiet at first. His face was apathetic, his body was still, his eyes were narrowed slightly. Alfred had thought that he wasn't going to say anything, that he would cry judging by how his black eyeliner was starting to smear and his eyes were red., and he reached out hesitantly to hug or at least hold him.

"Don't touch me."

Alfred wanted to comfort his best friend, he truly did, he wanted to make it all better for him with a hug and a few or so kisses. But all he could do was listen to what Arthur wanted. Whatever that was, he would make sure the need was followed.

"I want you to go back home. I don't want to talk to you anymore."

And he had been expecting something along his words. He just hadn't thought that they would have been as bad to hear from his former best friend. "Arthur, I'm...I'm so sorry, Arthur, I'll go home now."

"Fucking faggot." The Briton turned his head down, scarlet bangs shielding his eyes from view. "You ruin everything, fucking poof."

The American stood in front of him for a while in silence before he proceeded to leave quietly and quickly, trying his best to hold back the tears and loneliness that overwhelmed him. He could hear Arthur nearly-silently breaking down into sobs, but he never looked behind him. He just let the water fall down his cheeks, let them stain him and show weakness.

Arthur had collapsed against the tire swing, grasping the rope that held up the tire itself and sobbing loudly. He felt as if his eyes had been replaced and he had seen something entirely different from what he had expected. He knew he couldn't change everything, and that what had happened was now going to stay. The Brit could do nothing but change himself.

After the weekend arrived and departed, Arthur returned to school quietly. He had dressed in his usual button-down shirt with a vest on top, and khakis and loafers. His hair was its natural blond again. He wore no make-up on his face. He had a bombardment of books when he walked into class, Alfred noticed, and he stayed to himself. He talked to no one, and only talked when a teacher called on him. His emerald eyes that usually sparkled with any sort of spark or light were dull, and his lips were permanently downwards. Kids made snide and rude and hateful remarks to him, but he ignored them, head bowed and eyes to the ground. Alfred tried to talk to him, but Arthur only pulled his books closer to his chest and waited until the American let him pass to walk away. It was Arthur outside, but a hollow nothingness inside.

* * *

The Toy Is The Memory of a First Kiss

It was already announced that the Kirkland's would be moving back for the summer and the next year to London. James' job had once again decided to transfer him, this time back home across the pond. Peter, who had been born in England but hadn't lived there for long, was excited to go back home. Arthur had to decide what to do with college, since his older siblings were already out of high school and living back in the UK already.

Of course, Eliza and James had become quite popular while living in America, and it was natural for them to host a going-away party. And of course, the Jones-Williams household was invited. The one minor, and bad, detail was that Alfred and Arthur hadn't talked since the fight that separated their paths.

It was strange, once the guests were all there, to see the tall American. He had filled out a bit more muscle on his body, and his skin had become tanner. He gained some height and kept his glasses and charming smile. He had on a bomber flight jacket now, and he looked like he was a famous director of some sort, with a shirt speaking of video and films on and his camera by his side. Arthur had wanted to ask him what he was doing now, but he didn't want to disturb anything yet.

The Brit was seated in the tire swing with Peter, talking and joking around with his brother until he had to go to bed. Arthur stayed out, and another filled the space that Peter had previously been in.

Alfred.

The duo was silent, the wind swaying their seat back and forth. They lock their gazes with anything but each other. The silence is almost like a piercing knife that threatens to destroy if one does not break it nicely.

"I miss you," Arthur admitted quietly, looking at Alfred. Their legs could barely fit together, so a knee is placed in between his legs.

"I miss you," Alfred smiled small and gentle, hands fidgeting around the rope. He seemed anxious, as if there was something he wanted to tell him but he find the words to do so.

"I got into VU for history and teaching. I'll probably be off there, soon, to get my Masters there."

The American grinned. "That's awesome." He gestured towards his shirt. "I got into Scad. The artsy school? I'm going there for film."

"That's really good for you."

"Thanks."

Both went silent now, quietly eyeing each other every now and then but otherwise remaining mute. He wanted to break the silence, but he didn't know how. It was Alfred who broke it, however, gently as if it were a child.

"I've been thinking about you lately..."

Arthur gulped, and breathed out a sigh. "I've been thinking about you too..."

Silence again.

"I'm sorry for insulting y-"

"Don't."

Arthur went quiet; had he upset him?

"I don't want you to apologize. You don't have to gain forgiveness. I've already put it behind me."

The Brit let out a sigh in relief. "You nearly stopped my heart. I thought you were going to banjax me."

Alfred chuckled lightly in amusement. "Whatever that is, I'd never do it to someone I've loved for nearly eight years."

Arthur let out an impressed simper. "You've hid a great secret for eight years."

"It's only great because you're here."

"The world is great because you're here."

"Why's that?"

Arthur leaned forward and captured his lips sweetly, sighing at the soft, gentle feel of his lips against his. Alfred responded eagerly, and they pulled away, foreheads together and hands intertwining. "Because after so many years of fights or making up or just being each other's best friend and shoulder to cry a river on…I finally see that…I love you."

Alfred beamed brightly, pulling Arthur towards him so he sat halfway into his lap. "I love you as well."

Arthur smiled, and snuggled against him to gain warmth. Alfred pulled him close, eventually draping his jacket around him so he could be warm. The gentle swings and the feel of the other were soothing to him, as they relaxed and eventually drifted off into a sleep in the same spot where, ten years before, they had met as strangers on a tire swing.


End file.
